One Heart Too Many
by Blue Chance
Summary: The Tenth Doctor is between companions, and he realizes that he's so tired of leaving and being left. Somewhere deep in his hearts, there is a love for a woman whom he can't seem to forget... So, why not give in for a while?


**Story:** One Heart Too Many  
**Chapter:** 1: Of Doctors and Men  
**Author**: Me  
**Pairings:** John Smith/Mrs. Redfern, Ten/Mrs. Redfern, Ten/Rose  
**Warnings:** Here there be angst!

**Author's Note:** Yup. I saw Human Nature and The Family of Blood over the weekend, and they've been rolling around in my head since then. This is my way to get them out. I feel like John Smith and Mrs. Redfern had more story in them. This is my first Doctor Who story, but by no means by first fanfic, and I never get involved with a fandom unless it moves me enough to care. So, here we are. I also have plans to bring Eleven round at some point, so that should be fun. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 1: Of Doctors and Men**

I never thought it was the right thing, of course. I would go so far as to say it wasn't even a _good_ thing... But in the end, in the grand scheme of things I mean, it didn't really matter much.

So I went back.

I suppose this is the kind of story you start from the beginning, because picking it up in the middle is bound to be outwardly confusing. Unfortunately, there is no true beginning, just as there really isn't a true end either. It's always out there, always happening... Never beginning, never ending. Such is my life.

Joan Redfern walked slowly and deliberately through the woods, seeming to retrace untraceable steps. She was lost, but only in thought and memory. I wondered at the exact amount of time that had passed since I last saw her. It had either been days or weeks, but I was never very good at pinpointing exact dates.

I watched her for some minutes, musing to myself that this was the woman I would have spent a lifetime with had the man named John Smith been a coward... But then, if he had been a coward, The Family would have killed him anyway. So, really, I suppose, I would never have spent my life with her. It had never been in the stars for us. What had Martha said? It was always going to end.

Martha.

Just how many hearts had I carelessly taken hold of? I'd never meant to hurt anyone.

"Joan." I said as I stepped out in front of her. She yelped in surprise with her hand over her heart. Then recognition registered on her face.

"You." She said with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Me."

Her eyes hardened against me just as they had the last time I'd seen her.

"Do you have an idea how long I've struggled with forgetting you?" She asked without ceremony. I furrowed my forehead.

"No, actually." I answered honestly. "How long has it been?"

She clenched her jaw in incredulous anger.

"A year."

A year. Of course I'd come back a year later. One day I'd learn how to properly set time coordinates.

"Blimey, that is a long time, isn't it?"

"What are you doing here?"

I took a deep breath and a step toward her, which she instantly moved back from. She didn't trust me, and I didn't blame her.

"There's a part of me in here that fell in love with you and won't forget it." I started. "I've come back to give him a second chance."  
She shook her head slowly.

"I... I don't understand."

I took her hands in mine, and she didn't pull away.

"There's nothing out there for me, Joan." I said, gritting my teeth, pointing out at the sky. "I lose everyone. I've... _lost_ everyone."

"What are you saying?"

"In the end, I'm alone... But there's a man inside me that loves you and would love you for the rest of your life. Why not let him?"

A look of horrible hope spread over her features. She understood now what I was getting at.

"You mean to say..." She swallowed. "Mr. Smith...?"

I stared her in the eyes.

"Come with me."

**...**

I woke up from a nightmare.

"Joan!" I called out, sitting up in a bed that wasn't mine.

"I'm here, John."

Her voice called to me from a dark corner of the room. She sounded tired and far away, though she must have been very close.

"Where?" I asked, feeling the cold grip of panic rising in my stomach. "I can't see you."

I felt the bed shift under her weight as she came to sit beside me and took my hand. I felt for her face and cupped it in my hand before pulling her in and embracing her as though my life depended on it.

"Joan." I said with a tight throat, and I could feel her clinging to me with shaking arms. "What happened? I feel as though I've been asleep for an age..."

She pulled away from me.

"What is the last thing you remember?" She asked. My eyes were beginning

to adjust to the moonlight streaming in through the bedroom window. I could see

how intently she was looking at me now.

"I remember..."

I thought back. What did I remember? Everything was so muddled, and it was hard to grasp at any one memory for too long.

"The Doctor." I said finally. She nodded once, slowly. My heart sank as the whole truth came rushing back to me. I could feel my eyes widening. "I'm not real." I whispered.

"But you _are_." She said, gripping my hands in hers, her eyes shining with tears. "Don't you see? He gave you back to me."

I pulled a hand from her to run it through my hair.

"How?" I asked. "Why?"

"I don't know why." She answered me. "But I've missed you... so much, John."

"So, I did it then? Changed, I mean? I changed..."

She paused.

"Yes." Another pause. "You've been gone for a year."

"A year!" I said, my breath catching. "My darling, a year!"

Tears were welling up in my eyes and chest. Her hand shook in mine.

"Yes. But you're back now, and we... We can start over." She sounded scared, but hopeful. The last thing I remembered, I was giving her up. I'd made the decision that my life and her hopes were not as important as a whole town, a whole _universe _full of lives. At that moment, though, I'm not sure I would have been able to make the same decision again.

"Yes." I said, as I pulled her to me again, kissing her hand, then her cheeks, then her mouth. "Oh yes, please."

But what I failed to notice was a watch chain clasped to her apron.

**...**

"So you started your own school." I said with a smile over tea when the sun had come up, looking out over the room we had spent the night in, speaking excitedly like two children with a secret. "I don't suppose you're in need of a teacher?"

She laughed, and my heart contracted with joy. I loved to see her smile.

"Well, with credentials like yours, how could I turn you away?"

"Well, I don't believe you can." I smiled, and took her hand over the table. "Joan, I know it's been a year for you, but it's only been moments for me... and I do love you."

On her face was a clear expression of happiness at the declaration, but there was something else. She looked down, and I tried to follow her gaze.

"What's wrong?" I asked her. She smiled slightly, and tried to shrug my worried insistence off.

"It's just that..." She started, and then looked back at me. "It _has_ been a year, John, and I-"

"Oh." I said, taking my hand away from hers in disappointment. "Your feelings have changed then?"

She shook her head, and took my hand back in hers. I couldn't help but smile again.

"No!" She asserted. "No, of course not. I've thought of you every day. I've carried your journal with me since you... Well, since you weren't here anymore. It was all I had of you."

"And now it's not, my dear." I said, running my finger along the line of her cheek. She leaned in to my hand ever so slightly. "But something is wrong? Won't you tell me what it is?"

She looked in to my eyes.

"Do you remember what we saw together, in the watch? The night we found out about The Doctor. The night you decided to leave?"

"Yes, I remember." I answered. Of course I remembered. It was just yesterday to me.

"Well, it's just that... I hadn't dared hope that night, and have refused to let myself think of it until now. But do you think... Do you think-?"

My heart was racing just a bit now.

No, not my heart. Hearts. Distinctly two heartbeats.

"What is this?" I asked, holding my chest as I stood up from the table. "Joan?"

"You see," she started sadly. "He couldn't change completely. Not this time. He said he'd come to give you a second chance, and that you could spend the rest of my life with me, but he would have to go on. He said there was nothing for him, nothing but the lives counting on him every day."

I felt choked. I couldn't breathe.

"Then I'm still him!" I exclaimed. "How could I love you, how could you love me? I'm not real. I'm just a... a thought."

She looked stricken as she stood up.

"No..." She said. "No, that isn't true. You're so much more than him. He flies around the stars in a blue box that's bigger on the inside, but you? You are capable of such... bravery. Such poetry, and art... and love. He doesn't have those things in him. I've met him, John. I've looked in his eyes. He's not you, and you're not him."

"But I'm not _human_, Joan." I dropped my hand from my chest as the tears welled up in my eyes. "I don't know what I am."

Her jaw set.

"Well, I do." She said. "You're John Smith. You're a school teacher, a lovely man, a good and _honest _man, and... And you love me."

I swallowed.

"Yes..." I whispered. "With all my heart."

"Well, you can love me with two of them now."

She watched me after she said that, waiting for my reaction. I had a choice to make. From where I was standing, I was being made to make a lot of very important decisions in a relatively short amount of time, and for all that Joan insisted on how brave I was... I just wished it was all done with. I wished I had never known about The Doctor. I wanted to go back to the me I was before any of this had ever happened.

But that man never existed. There was no _me_ before this has ever happened. I was always part him.

She reached her hand out to me. I looked down at it with an almost stomach turning mix of fear and hope. Could I really go on living what was essentially a lie at its core? She called me an honest man, but would that be honest?

"I..." I looked up in to her eyes. "I can't. I'm sorry." I shook my head. "I'm so sorry."

She dropped her hand slowly to her side, blinking away a tear.

"He's giving up years of his life to give you a chance to have one of your own. With me."

I looked away from her.

"I-I need time. I need time to think."

"Of course." She said. I saw her reach in to her pocket, and pull from it a familiar though rather innocuous fob watch. She placed it on the tea table and began to walk toward the door.

"Joan-" I said, turning toward her. She didn't turn to me.

"I love you, Mr. Smith... But if you choose to become..." She paused, swallowing. "If you choose to leave, please leave before I see you again."

"Joan, I..."

She was out of the room, and the door was closed before any more words could be said. I turned with aching hearts back to the watch on the table. Why had she left it here? What did she mean for me to do?

What was I going to do?


End file.
